UnREAL 2.07

Ambush

Rachel has lots of drama, Quinn has a little. Mostly this one is about Rachel.

Rachel gets ambushed by Adam late at night, when she is in bed with Coleman, who has just asked her to be his date at his cousin's wedding on Martha's Vineyard. Adam and Rachel had a fling during the previous season. He was invited back by Quinn, who wants to break up Coleman and Rachel. She also wants Adam to make a guest appearance on the current season of Everlasting, which he does.

Rachel doesn't want to have anything to do with Adam. He backs her against a wall at one point and gets her to start making out with him but it doesn't get very far. He is trying to be nice but it is too late, at least in Rachel's mind it is, for the two of them. Quinn also attacks the Coleman and Rachel issue from another direction, she sweet talks John Booth into trying to lure him off the show with another project. Quinn just wants Coleman off the show. She wants Rachel to stay. Rachel finds out about this when she walks in on Booth and Coleman chatting about possible projects. This sows a bit of distrust between Rachel and Coleman.

Darius has to pick one of the four remaining contestants for a date. He goes with Chantal. The date is kind of fake and ends in a tragic-comic way. The boat they are on isn't a gondola, like it is supposed to be but actually a prettied up row boat, which isn't even on a body of water. The date ends with Chantal emptying her dead fiance's ashes from the locket around her neck and the ashes blowing into Darius' face.

Quinn is having a great time with John. She is very happy. He gives her a ride to the set of Everlasting. They make out in his car before getting out. Later they go back to his place. It is while they are there that they find about what happened after Darius and Chantal's date.

Romeo, Darius' cousin and manager, came back. Darius didn't like how the date with Chantal ended. They run into Tiffany and Hot Rachel (Yael) while Darius is complaining about the date. Someone, I don't recall whom, suggests that the four of them should party together. They take one of the show's cars without permission. Rachel and Coleman decide to call the cops and report the car as stolen. They then follow the stolen car they with a camera crew.

They get there in time to see Darius, Romeo, Yael, and Tiffany pulled over. When Darius can't provide ID to prove who he is the cops put him in handcuffs. Rachel and Coleman are filming the stop. Rachel gets nervous and runs out to try and calm the situation down, at least one of the cops at this point has a gun out. The cop gets distracted by Rachel, turns back around, sees Romeo coming towards him and shoots him.

At the very beginning of the episode there was a disclaimer about gun violence. I wasn't sure what that was foreshadowing. I thought that maybe Jeremy was going to come back to the set with a gun. Once I saw Darius, Romeo, Tiffany, and Hot Rachel take the car I had a bad feeling I knew how that would wind up. The truly awful part about it is that instead of telling the cops who was in the car when they called it in Coleman and Rachel just reported it as stolen.

Romeo's status is unclear. Is he dead? At first I thought he was shot in the head but when they showed the replay it looked like he was shot in the midsection. They took him to the hospital, not the morgue but there have not been any updates on the status of his condition.

Jay gives Rachel a very hard time about what happened when he finds out how everything played out. Rachel is already blaming herself for the shooting when Jay confronts her. She goes back to her trailer and curls up in a ball. Adam comes back and tries to talk to her but she doesn't want him around. She winds up calling her mother who comes and takes her to a mental institution and has her take some medication to (presumably) take the edge off her dark mood.

Quinn sees Rachel leaving the set with her mother and doesn't look happy about it at all. The only thing Quinn is happy about is that Gary the network executive has fired Coleman and put her back in charge.

Finally, before the final scene with Rachel taking the medication, Hot Rachel meets with Jeremy. She acts distraught, at first about what has just happened. She asks Jeremy to tell her everything he knows. She surreptitiously start recording their conversation. I'm starting to think that Yael is more than just a contestant on the show. I think she might be an investigative reporter who wants to do an expose about Everlasting.

This was a very powerful episode. It was clear from the last episode that Rachel was already spiraling downward. She continued in that downward trajectory and more or less crashed. Never say never but I don't see how things can get any lower for her from here.